And yeah, I had my first child at the end of September and am no longer gainfully employed at a place where I can fuck around on forums all day, so I haven't been checking around here much. I miss all of you though.

RE: "legal weed"

I was obviously a supporter of Amendment 64, but my reaction since its passage has me feeling like the odd man out to a certain extent. Namely, I think the idea of recreational marijuana stores is a pipe dream at this point in history and in this particular country, and that the parts of the Amendment allowing for that will be challenged or picked apart into oblivion.

My first problem with A64's language is that it does not specify the residency of people over 21 who can purchase cannabis at these retail outlets... meaning that ANYONE (regardless of state or country of residence) could conceivably come into our fair state, purchase up to an ounce of marijuana at a retail location, and then consume it or take it wherever they want. This is untenable in my view, because this takes the current Colorado medical marijuana retail model and essentially multiplies the customer base by a thousand, theoretically making CO a much larger Amsterdam surrounded by the intolerant "countries" of Wyoming, Utah, Kansas, and to a lesser extent New Mexico. This to me will get the goat of the Feds and they won't allow it to stand.

It's up to the legislature of Colorado to come up with similar regulations as we operate under for the medical marijuana industry to have a chance of that scenario ever coming to fruition. I think it will have to be reduced to Colorado residents over 21 ONLY, thus eliminating the whole cannabis tourism bit and reducing the potential customer (and for that matter investor/owner, which is a whole other can of worms) base to a couple million CO residents instead of THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD.

The retail end aside, the core of the amendment is a personal liberties assertion that adults over 21 should be able to legally possess and use (in private) cannabis. This part apparently will not be challenged by local authorities and should stand the test against the Feds as a general rule. Of course the Feds could come in and bust little ol' me or any of my friends at any time, but they lack the enforcement dollars as well as the enforcement willpower to do so, and have shown over the last 8+ years that they only care about tax criminals (Hi Cali!) and those who are blatantly disregarding the state's regulatory framework (selling large amounts to non-patients, selling it out of state, selling other drugs, etc.).

The government's internal policies back this up, and once the election is certified and the Governor signs the bill, that personal freedom will become a reality in Colorado (and to a lesser extent, Washington). People can possess up to an ounce, they can legally trade cannabis (again, under 1 oz) in a non-profit manner, and they can cultivate up to 6 plants at home or in another private residence. This is HUGE to me, mostly because it allows those who did not want to have their name on a registry of medical marijuana patients, as well as those whose medical conditions did not meet the state-approved list (including returning veterans with PTSD and other mental illnesses which may be aided by cannabis).

So yeah, those are my basic thoughts. If anyone has follow-up questions, I'll keep an eye on this thread.

Oh, and check out my first article ever in High Times. January 2013 issue (on newsstands now), the "Guide to Cleaner Concentrates" about my friend Selecta Nikka T. That article and its photos as well as a 2 page quasi-centerfold on page 14/15 are all mine, as are the dry bud shots in the "How to Grow a Cannabis Cup Winner" article (I did the official photos for the Denver Medical Cannabis Cup last year). And if you wanna be my friend on Facebook, I'm Ry Prichard.

<3<3<3<3
Stumbleweed

Tue Nov 13, 2012 2:55 pm

futuristxen

Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 19377
Location: Tighten Your Bible Belt

Stumbleweed wrote:

My first problem with A64's language is that it does not specify the residency of people over 21 who can purchase cannabis at these retail outlets... meaning that ANYONE (regardless of state or country of residence) could conceivably come into our fair state, purchase up to an ounce of marijuana at a retail location, and then consume it or take it wherever they want. This is untenable in my view, because this takes the current Colorado medical marijuana retail model and essentially multiplies the customer base by a thousand, theoretically making CO a much larger Amsterdam surrounded by the intolerant "countries" of Wyoming, Utah, Kansas, and to a lesser extent New Mexico.

Surely this is the intention. The state is going to make so much money and it probably helps tourism a ton as well. I assumed that was the motivation for the law. Everyone in Colorado is about to get PAID.

Tue Nov 13, 2012 3:23 pm

Stumbleweed

Joined: 09 Mar 2005
Posts: 9740
Location: Denver

futuristxen wrote:

Stumbleweed wrote:

My first problem with A64's language is that it does not specify the residency of people over 21 who can purchase cannabis at these retail outlets... meaning that ANYONE (regardless of state or country of residence) could conceivably come into our fair state, purchase up to an ounce of marijuana at a retail location, and then consume it or take it wherever they want. This is untenable in my view, because this takes the current Colorado medical marijuana retail model and essentially multiplies the customer base by a thousand, theoretically making CO a much larger Amsterdam surrounded by the intolerant "countries" of Wyoming, Utah, Kansas, and to a lesser extent New Mexico.

Surely this is the intention. The state is going to make so much money and it probably helps tourism a ton as well. I assumed that was the motivation for the law. Everyone in Colorado is about to get PAID.

Maybe the intention of the amendment authors (my thought is that they left all all this stuff aside from the personal possession/cultivation/transfer piece intentionally vague to see what they can get away with), but certainly not the intention of the local and state government. All the key people in top positions here in CO were opposed to Amendment 64 and the legislature will almost certainly reduce it to CO residents only, at least for the retail operation and purchase bit. That scenario draws WAY too much federal and international attention in my opinion and the Feds would step in and at least pick off the biggest retailers.

I think if they leave the residency requirement out of the personal possession/use bit, the tourism industry will appreciate it, because theoretically you can create a private hotel/club/resort where marijuana is tolerated on private property. Resort towns would LOVE that, and I don't think the localities or the Feds would do anything to stop it.

EDIT: The other contention that I've been hearing from lawyers is that the Feds could seize all tax dollars from the state which resulted from the federally-illegal sale of cannabis and even prosecute the state officials responsible for the regulation of said retail outlets. That's like the nuclear option, but I could see it happening if the legislators don't craft smart regulations.

But I mean look at Europe--it looks like ten times worse over there right now. Eastern Europe is making googly eyes at Nazis. England can't even go through two weeks of football matches without something racist happening. The French and Spanish have all kinds of racist problems.

I suppose in comparison to Europe, North America is looking like calm waters these days.

Haha.. What? No.

The level of overt racism is certainly higher in the USA. Not to say that there isn't plenty going on here, but please. The British Nationalist Party had a bit of time in the light (a very small number of representatives in Parliament). It's to be expected in recent times of economic crisis - it always leads to more extreme politics. But they were given enough rope and they hung themselves. They're utterly discredited now.

As for the Conservative government - yeah, they want to completely shit on poor people but that sentiment is race-indiscriminate for the most part. Meanwhile, the other party on your two party system just fought a closely lost election pretty brazenly appealing to racist voters.

But yeah, Europe is big and diverse and there's plenty of racism going on in parts of it. Some of the stuff going on in Greece since they've been in turmoil is absolutely shocking... Like this, for example, since I was reding it earlier - http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/1113/1224326523978.html
And that's not the only example I've read and heard about first hand. Scandinavia and some Eastern European countries too have got some messed up shit going on.

Spain have never had great record for race relations as we have seen examples of on this board, but I don't think it's as bad there as you think it is either.

I'm from Poland. And no, we don't have bigger problems with race relations then the rest of Europe and definitely not the US... We got plenty of shit from the British press even before Euro 2012 started and got demonised as some insanely racist country and then it turned out plenty of the media had to apologise, because it was one of the most peaceful sport events and it got a bad rep before it even started.

We have plenty of right wing nuts here and we may have a small and loud group of some fanatics, but racism in Poland is nowhere near as you seem to think, Futur.

The only racist thing I saw this year in Warsaw was a kebab place with the word "kebab" crossed out and a big honkinh "STOP THE ISLAMIZATION OF EUROPE" slogan written on the whole wall and it was more ridiculous than racist.

No offense, but North America doesn't exactly look like calm water in comparison.